I recently was working as a contractor for an insurance company that had stringent but outdated standards for programming. Their standards had grown from guidelines for proper development into barriers to innovation.

I am a firm believer in standards. Coding standards make code easier for developers in a team to understand and maintain code in the code base regardless of the author. Standards that specify JavaScript frameworks as well as CSS and PHP or ColdFusion frameworks make the code base more consistent.

The problem is that standards can become outdated as the technology grows. What once was a guide now is a roadblock. It is important to have someone or a group review existing standards and examine how they may be hampering growth.

As with all parts of the IT landscape, standards that do not change will rapidly outgrow the technology.

Mark Halperin referred to our president as being “kind of a dick”. The White House apparently called MSNBC and complained and Halperin was suspended indefinitely.

I think it was within the rights of the White House to call MSNBC just as anybody else has the right to call and complain if comments on a television program caused them to take umbrage. It only served to give the incident more legs and show how thin-skinned the White House has become but they did have the right to comment.

I think most of what I have read is beside the point I find most troubling. Mark Halperin is paid to be a talking head. He is a political analyst for MSNBC and editor at-large for Time magazine. I find it very troubling that the best he can come up with is a remark more expected in a bar near closing time than on a news program.

I think Mark Halperin should remain on suspension until he can show that he can put a thought together without using idiotic ad-hominem remarks. Such attacks are out of line regardless of the target. The whole interchange on MSNBC (I actually saw the whole piece) undermines the little credibility MSNBC still has.

The ATF is in hot water because they allowed straw purchases to take place and allowed hundreds, perhaps thousands of guns to be walked over the border into Mexico. There is a lot of evidence that this was done to bolster administration calls for more restrictions on the 2nd amendment rights of US citizens under the false flag of preventing illegal trafficking.

It’s time to remind the administration that the ends do not justify the means, especially when the goal is to limit further the rights of law abiding American citizens.

While you cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs, there is not justification for allowing the “collateral damage” of the death of BP officer Brian Terry and the deaths of untold other people both Americans and Mexicans both in the US and Mexico.

If the ATF is found to have deliberately allowed guns to be illegally purchased and watched them being moved across the border without trying to interdict the movement, the people responsible, not the people who get thrown under the bus by the people responsible, should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the laws of the US and the evidence should be forwarded to the Mexican government for prosecution under their laws as well.

There is no part of the law that allows law enforcement agencies to operate outside the law. If nobody is willing to hold the guilty parties accountable, we cease to be a nation of laws and we are a lot less free.

Michele Bachmann refers to herself as a “bold choice”. I think she made a bold choice to run for president but I disagree she is a bold choice. I think she and Harman Cain are people who can be elected and bring a new vision to the Oval Office.

The first impression I have of both of these candidates is they are less interested in being president than they are in setting this country back on track. They both realize, as most of the public does, that the current profligate lifestyle of the federal government is sending us in a direction we cannot sustain.

These are two people who will lead and govern in a very constitutional manner without taking on the mantle of a politician. Both Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain are people who are citizens first in a way that the founders of this country envisioned; people elected to represent their fellows.

I am vowing to take more time to blog on several subjects. Programming, the development and contracting environment and politics are all on the table.

I had had a time where I was afraid to speak my mind publicly on the political situation in America. This made me realize recently that this was the time to get out and speak my mind because a right suppressed is a right lost.

You may not agree with my politics and that is your right. The right of free speech is much more than a right to share my views. It is a right to share your views and to engage in civil discourse. Low blows and ad hominem comments are unwelcome and you won’t find them here.

I am gratified that “Gabby” Giffords is recovering and I hope soon that she returns to the House to resume representing her constituents.

I would be far more gratified if nobody had been shot, nobody killed or wounded and a very precious child whose potential will never be realized were instead alive and safe with her family.

I am not a political ally of Rep Giffords but if a legislator cannot represent the interests of those who elected her, this country is less free. An attack on any elected official is an attack on the republic.

I hope Gabby and the others wounded recover from their injuries and the names of those who died are remembered fondly by those who knew and loved them.